The edited transcript of a tape-recorded conversation Danny Howell made with Mrs. Rose Sims at her home in Sutton Veny during the evening of Friday 7th July 1989:
Rose said:
“My name before I married was Rose Richardson. I was brought up in Sutton Veny. I was born in January 1900, in the house where I still live now, next to the Woolpack, at the top of the village.”
“I went to work, first, for Colonel, the Honourable W.P. Alexander and his wife, the Honourable Mrs. Margaret Katherine Alexander, at Polebridge, the big house, off Duck Street, down at the bottom of Sutton Veny. This was about 1920. I was 20; I was late starting. Most girls left school and went straight into service but I didn’t. I stayed at home. Mum didn’t want me to go but I had some old school friends that were working at the Alexanders’. Colonel and Mrs. Alexander talked it over and they agreed to have me. I was a maid, but there was a French cook there and I learned a lot from her. Things didn’t work out though, leaving home upset me and I had what I suppose you would call a nervous breakdown, after nine months. I wasn’t there a twelve-month and I left.”
“Then I went to work for Lady Pelly at St. John’s Lodge, Boreham Road, Warminster. I was about 21 then, so it would be 1921. Lady Pelly had four of us girls for staff in the house. I was the housemaid, Lily Barnett was the parlourmaid, and Louie Fricker was the cook. There was another girl, called Ann, and she came from away. Annie left soon after I started and her place was taken by George Gilbert’s wife Mary, who came from Salisbury. We all lived in. Lily and I were great friends; her family had a tailor’s shop at Silver Street, Warminster. Her father, Jack Barnett, was a cripple. I had to send my wages back home to mother in Sutton Veny. Money was scarce then and things were tough.”
“Lady Pelly was very nice to work for but the system was very strict. We had to call her ‘M’Lady.’ She called us girls by our christian names. She had a little bell that she used to ring when she wanted something or wanted waiting on. It was my job to keep the house in order, to clean it. The parlourmaid, Lily Barnett, saw to the food, waiting at table. The cook prepared the meals, and I saw to the cooking when the cook was off or away. I did that many a time. The cooking was done on a gas stove; and the house was heated by gas. Whenever any of the indoor staff were off, I stood in for them.”
“You didn’t get much time off from work, only one half-day a week and every other Sunday. We went to the seaside once a year on a day’s outing. We had no bathing costumes of our own but you could hire them. When you look back our bathing suits seem so old-fashioned now. We had to wear a uniform at Lady Pelly’s. I used to make the caps and aprons, my own and the ones for the others.”
“You were tied to the work. You couldn’t just go out when you wanted to. It’s very different today. We knew what we had to do and we had to be there. You didn’t go out anywhere in particular and if you had to, for something really necessary, you made arrangements with the other servants. We lived in, but we som0etimes went out for the evening. To begin with, Lady Pelly liked us to be in by nine o’clock. She had two sons, one was Sir Harold Pelly who lived at Gillingham in Dorset, and the other was Arthur Pelly and he lived, when he was single, at St. John’s Lodge. He said to his mother, one day, that it was old-fashioned to make us be in by nine o’clock, and she let us stay out a bit later after that.”
“The Rev. George H.S. Atwood, the rector at St. Aldhelm’s, Bishopstrow, died in 1921. Mrs. Atwood met up with Arthur Pelly and they were married. They were nice people. Arthur Pelly was awfully nice.”
“I got engaged while I was in service at St. John’s Lodge. Lady Pelly knew I was going to Salisbury on my half-day off to get my ring. When I got back she wanted to see the ring. I thought it was ever so nice of her to take an interest. She cared for us girls, and she gave us a present each at Christmas time. She was a nice lady.”
“Lady Pelly was a big woman. Old age got to her and she couldn’t walk in her later days and she took to a bath chair. Lily Barnett used to push her about in the chair, even around town. At night the gardener used to go in and help Lily get Lady Pelly up the stairs to her bedroom. He used to stand at the back and catch hold of the handles of the chair, and Lily would take charge of the front. Together they would get the chair and Lady Pelly to the top of the stairs and then Lily could put Lady Pelly to bed.”
“If Mr. Arthur Pelly was in residence, there would be an occasional party but nothing big. Only quiet affairs. Lady Pelly didn’t do much in the way of entertaining when I worked for her, well, she was getting old. I dare say it was greater before my time. Her family used to come and visit. The entertaining wasn’t big meals, mostly teas, cups of tea for friends who used to call in. A regular visitor was Mrs. Dixon, the wife of the Rev. Dixon who lived in Prestbury House on the Boreham Road. Lady Pelly and Mrs. Dixon were friends.”
“Lady Pelly had a dog called Rufus and a long-furred cat called Trudy. That cat was beautiful, very sweet. If ever we wanted anything down town, Lily Barnett would make a joke by saying to me: ‘Ask Trudy to get on her bicycle and go and get it for us.’ Lily used to take the dog for walks, and if Lily pushed Lady Pelly in the chair, the dog would go along too. I loved that little dog but what always amused me was that it knew when it was Sunday. Lady Pelly went to church at St. John’s, regularly, every Sunday. Lily Barnett used to push her to church in the chair, and that dog knew it wasn’t allowed to go with them. That was the only time it wouldn’t get out of its chair and go for a walk. That dog knew it was Sunday and he knew they were all going to church. It stayed in the chair and never moved. I was so struck by that. I thought fancy the dog doing that. You could hear the church bells going, well, St. John’s Lodge was immediately adjacent St. John’s Church. Any other day that dog was anxious to go for a walk and was out of the chair like a shot. As soon as Lily put her coat on, that dog was ready to go, but not on a Sunday.”
“Lady Pelly had a beautiful garden, it was full of herbaceous borders. She took a great interest in it. Before I started work at St. John’s Lodge, Lady Pelly used to open her gardens to the public on Sunday afternoons. It was pretty. It was lovely, and there were summerhouses around. And fruit trees. Lady Pelly had a lot of exotic plants; goodness knows where she got them from.”
“Tom Andrews was the gardener, he lived along the Boreham Road in a cottage with an old porch over the door. He was a very good gardener, a real gardener, He hated for us girls to go down that garden but he had reason for it. My husband, Leonard Sims (died 18th June 1980), was a gardener and he was just the same about his garden.”
“Rufus the dog was allowed to roam in Lady Pelly’s garden. It was a good dog really because it kept to the paths. It was no trouble, mind it was old and that made a difference. It wasn’t like a young one that ran everywhere, it didn’t need a lot of exercise. Lily used to push Lady Pelly in the chair round the garden and the dog walked alongside.”
“It wasn’t really posh in the house. It was very nice but nothing elaborate. The kitchen part seemed old. Mary and I had two separate bedrooms, the door wasn’t shut but there was a doorway between where we could go through from one room to another. Mary woke me up one night because of some thunder and lightning. I put the light on. Oh gosh, cockroaches were everywhere. My bed was covered in them. It was horrible. I’ve never forgotten that and I never shall. I called to Mary: ‘Oh, come and see.’ Mary said: ‘You can’t stay in here, come in with me.’ From then on, we slept in Mary’s single bed because I couldn’t bear to go in my room again. I was too terrified.”
“You see, above my bedroom was a loft, where they kept the hay for the horses. My bedroom adjoined part of the stables. I suppose that’s where the cockroaches came from. Nothing much could be done about that sort of thing in them days. I can’t understand it now. We would go out, come home, and go upstairs to that. How we used to put up with it, I don’t know. Those two bedrooms, Mary’s and mine, were the worse in the whole house.”
“Anyhow, her ladyship found out that Mary and I were sharing a single bed. She thought that was terrible. She must have got it seen to because I did go back into my room eventually. We had two traps for cockroaches, one upstairs and the cook had one downstairs. Every Saturday morning we would shake them out, to empty them. When you went to work for someone you were not told about cockroaches or anything like that; new servants had to find out about those things for themselves.”
“Lady Pelly never had a car. She had a coach and two houses. The coach house was on the end of St. John’s Lodge, next to the kitchen. The coach was lovely, and you would see Lady Pelly go out in it, just like the Queen. Mind you, that sort of thing was coming to an end. The coachman was Johnny Butler. He was a Warminster man, I think. He lived on the Boreham Road, close to Lady Pelly’s, so he didn’t have far to go to work. He was a dear old chap. I’ve still got a letter that he wrote to me when my father died (after I left Lady Pelly’s). My father was William Edward Richardson and he worked at Greenhill Farm, Sutton Veny, for 40 years. He died on 12th August 1925, he was only 63. That left my mother, myself, my brother Jack, and my sister Mrs. Kimber.”
“When Lady Pelly died, the dog, the cat, and the horses were destroyed. That was her wish, I think it was in her will. They were put to sleep because Lady Pelly didn’t want anybody else to have them. Lily would have loved to have had the dog, because it was, in a way, more hers than it was her ladyship’s. Lily loved that dog, she thought the world of it. And it was sad, terribly sad, to see those horses go up the drive for the last time.”
“Lady Pelly died in February 1925. That meant I was out of a job and I had to look elsewhere. There was a parlourmaid’s job going at Captain and Mrs. Hammond-Chambers at the Manor House, Norton Bavant. That was a bigger affair there, a bigger place with more people, and I didn’t think I was up to the mark for waiting at table. I didn’t think I could do it because it was a step up from housemaid to parlourmaid and I hadn’t done a lot of parlour work. Mr. Arthur Pelly more or less made me go for the job. He said: ‘You take it, I’ll write you a reference, you can do it.’ I went and I got on alright. I became a parlourmaid. Gertrude McCracken, from Sutton Veny, was there, she was a housemaid and I knew her. Edith Kitley was another of the girls there. I was married from Norton Bavant. After I left, the Hammond-Chambers sold the house to some brewery people and they in turn sold it.”
“Looking back, I enjoyed my time at Lady Pelly’s, apart from the experience with the cockroaches. I’m surprised that St. John’s Lodge has lasted as long as it has with creepy-crawlies like that. I’ve never seen the house since I left there over 60 years ago but I’m told it’s about to be knocked down.”